Job Description

General commercial and contracts lawyer required to take on a business critical, sole counsel role. You will be directly supporting the Board in the global growth of a hugely innovative and disruptive product that is attracting many accolades - this could revolutionise life assurance! Start-up feel to the business, but created by a established, pedigree (re)insurer.

SEARCH MANDATE BRIEF (London): General commercial and contracts lawyer required to take on a business critical, sole counsel role. You will be directly supporting the Board in the global growth of a hugely innovative and disruptive product that is attracting many accolades - this could revolutionise life assurance! Start-up feel to the business, but created by a established, pedigree (re)insurer.

My client is a relatively newly-established and wholly owned business that has been pivoted out from a successful, traditional (re)insurer. Corroborating their position as a leading industry innovator, they have invested and successfully brought to market an incredible product that is forecast to revolutionise the life assurance industry, both in terms of how risks are assessed and how appropriate coverage is efficiently underwritten. As such, you have the benefit of working with a recognised brand, but with the freedom to "upset the apple-cart" by questioning the status quo and doing things in a new way (which is a virtue of the start-up mentality).

Following successful development and trialling, their has been significant uptake in the industry resulting in some exceptionally high profile recent deals. Having established a strong Board presence with years of deep experience in technology and insurance, they are now seeking to hire an adept, capable, senior in-house counsel to directly support the Board in the continued growth of the company and take on a broad range of legal duties. This is a newly created position, which will allow you to shape it over time.

As a qualified lawyer, you will ideally have excellent knowledge and experience of general commercial / corporate environments. A core area of expertise needed for you to add value on day one are these corporate / commercial contracts ; these could be supplier and procurement agreements including outsourcing, intra-group arrangements, licensing, distribution agreements, etc. etc. There may also be customer agreement, distribution agreements and many more.

The role will also support the Board in the regulatory, compliance, governance and strategic growth arenas. As such the role is quite generalist, almost like a mini General Counsel. You could be looking at projects from GDPR through to renegotiating supplier agreements, and even some Co Sec type duties.

It is envisioned that this individual will lead any future additions to the legal team as the company continues its growth trajectory, and will be a core advisor to the Board including supporting the growth strategy and direction-setting. Currently, they utilise external counsel extensively; this role-holder will assume responsibility for the selection, instruction and oversight of said external counsel.

This role would suit someone coming from either in-house or private practice that enjoys working on diverse projects. You must also be comfortable working in a small company with frequent Board interaction and direct visibility of senior management whilst undertaking endemically important projects to the growth of the business. You will be commercially minded, able to manage senior stakeholders and work progressively with both legal, and non-legal individuals.

This is an amazing opportunity and allows excellent career progression, in the short, medium and long term. Please get in touch if you're interested in this specific position, or in having an informal, confidential career consultation.